The Heavens Above
by An abundance of squids
Summary: You wake up on an unknown and undiscovered planet with a chartreuse sky and a magenta plain of alien grass when a strange, floating red orb gives you choice. But what if, instead of taking its guidance, you spurn it to roam the galaxies unguided? What if you decide that the only fate and goal you believe in is only the sky above and what lies beyond?
1. Planet unknown - day 1,1

PART ONE - AURORA BOREALIS

* * *

 _Starting EVOS v. 4.2.1_

 _Initialising_ _suit systems..._

 _Shields online_

 _Multi-tool online_

 _health systems online_

 _inventory online_

 _scanner offline_

 _Connection with Aurora Borealis offline_

 _Connection with galaxy trade centre offline_

I open my eyes. Yellow signs and text flashes before my vision as my suit's HUD finished rebooting. The superimposed text soon fades away, leaving me staring up, straight before the heavens. They are a pale yellow-green, with wisps of bluish cloud flitting over its smooth, unbroken surface like gentle blue waves in a sea of green. A star, burning a bright, overpowering shade of white stands in the centre of my vision, its surface partly covered by the clouds.

I lie there for a moment, taking in the sky and the sun, letting it all sink into me.

And then, I got up.

The chartreuse sky gives away to a plain full of gently swaying magenta grass, flecked with yellow stripes. The flat expanse is broken only by a few sparse trees and a handful of grey rocks with deep red veins twisting through their jagged surface.

And there, lying a few metres away from me, stands a ship.

Its powder blue finish is streaked with scratches and one of its wings leaks smoke, but the starship still looks intact. Several pods of supplies lay scattered around it, the remnants of its cargo and my pitiful attempts at preparation.

Walking over to the ship and her cargo, I try to salvage what I can from the containers, but most my items have been lost, cast to the atmosphere in my collision course with the planet.

I sigh and close the lid of a red crate. I had recovered a little iron and a flag bearing my black and orange emblem, but beyond that, nothing.

I turn to my ship. I needed to see how bad the damage was before I started to make any plans.

On the pale blue hull of the ship, her name is just visible through the myriad of scratches that now decorate it.

The _Aurora Borealis_.

Her cockpit window is open, but before I clamber over its top, something catches my eye.

Hovering just above the right wing of my ship, a red...orb floats. Its surface is made up of polygons, shifting and changing over and over with seemingly no pattern. Its red skin of shapes looks almost...alive, hypnotic and irresistible.

I move a hand to touch it. My gloved fingers are mere moments away from touching it when suddenly, something flashes through my mind. A flash of untold knowledge. A feeling of destiny. It flashes through me almost like it belongs here, in me. Like _I_ am the intruder in my mind, not it. Looking deeper into its multi-faceted surface, I see another world, with a wrecked ship like mine.

And another pulsing, red orb.

And, even though it does not utter a single word, it gives me a choice.

Reach out and touch it and take its, take the _atlas'_ guidance. The name flashes through my mind, and I instantly know that somehow, it is the name of the object, no the _being_ before me. Take its guidance and let my journey have a _purpose_.

Or draw my hand back and spurn its ethereal assistance and be left to freely walk the uncharted reaches of the galaxy, forever lost but not without a purpose.

For a moment, my hand hovers before it, on the precipice of the choice. The promise of knowledge fighting my own desire for my own will, undetermined, unrestrained and unguided by any cosmic entity, benevolent or otherwise.

I withdraw my hand.

* * *

changelog 21-8-16

\+ started story

\+ added chapter

/and I've done it again. started a new story when I still have another one that needs finishing. Damn.


	2. Planet unknown - day 1,2

The orb folds in on itself and within moments, it become nothing more than a memory. I gaze at the spot where it floated for a few confused seconds before turning back to my ship and getting in. I had given up _something_ , but I didn't know what.

I close the glass cockpit roof above and sit in the silence for a moment. It is dark inside the ship, showing no signs of life, either organic or machine.

Locating a red switch behind a glass plate, I turn the ship on.

It rumbles to life beneath my gloved fingertips, screens lighting up a shade of azure that contrasts sharply against the yellow of my suit HUD.

 _Connection with aurora borealis online_

 _Ship inventory online_

 _Connection to ADN offline_

 _Connection with galactic trade centre offline_

 _You have three alerts_

The notifications appear in stereo, first on my ship dashboard and then superimposed in yellow onto my vision by my HUD.

I tap the notifications on the dashboard and my ship windscreen lights up with blue text and diagrams, informing me that my landing thrusters, pulse drive and hyperdrive were all offline.

I let out a sigh and close the dialogue, my mind already making note of all the things I would have to find. Iron. Zinc. Heridium. I could only hope that the planet I had found myself on had those elements or else I was stuck.

Exiting my ship, I bring up my inventory before me. I had enough iron to fix my scanner, and with a few commands to my suit, I receive the following message:

 _Scanner online_

With a grin, I activate my scanner. A blue wave travels through my vision as icons pop up over the surrounding geology and flora.

I inwardly groan.

There was plenty of iron and carbon, but no heridium as far as I could see. Multi-tool in hand, I advance upon the plain and its resources. Perhaps I could repair the launcher thrusters and then see if I could spot any heridium formations from above the planet?

I am so lost in my thoughts that I fail to notice the sentinel hovering above me.

With a beep, it flies into my vision and I start, momentarily fumbling with my multi-tool. It hovers there for a moment, its singular blue eye on level with mine, and there is the sound of a lense re-adjusting, before it beeps again and turns to the half-mined iron deposit I was mining. It scans the rock, a blue beam of light similar to my own scanner, let's out another a beep and flies away.

My curiosity piqued, I chase after the little yellow drone. I had heard of sentinels before, from the traders that had passed through the space station I had spent my youth in, but never seen one for myself.

Not a whole, working one anyways. I had seen scraps of them, shells and circuit boards broken and charred from what I could only guess had been an intense battle.

It flies around aimlessly, sometimes pausing to scan a rock or a bit of the planet's flora or fauna, before flitting away again.

I run after it, but it'd faster than me and it soon becomes just a yellow speck in the pale green sky.

I finally stop, panting a little as I give up my chase.

And then pause.

I have no idea where I am.

* * *

 **huzzah! a new chapter! sentinels are a pain in the arse and this** **charecter** **will have some charecter to them!**


End file.
